John Sullivan was ambassador to Russia for both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. He's issuing a stark warning not just about Russia but also Russia's growing alliances.
"We’re asleep to the threat that Russia and that Russia, Beijing, Tehran, and Pyongyang pose to not just the international system but to the United States in particular," Sullivan said in an interview with Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant.
Iran and North Korea are growing more powerful as a result of their alliance with Russia. And China has grown much closer to Russia in the last two years, making Moscow a near-vassal state to the Chinese overlords.
Sullivan is of the "hard-headed realist school" when it comes to President Vladimir Putin and Russia. He holds no illusions about negotiating with the Russians, unlike many on the left in the West.
"[T]he Russian government under Putin is an implacable adversary of the United States and anyone who goes into negotiations with the Russians, a Westerner, who approaches negotiations and uses that term the way we do is certain to fail," he told Chalfant.
Indeed, Sullivan has serious doubts about Putin's desire for "peace."
"I guess what I learned was, as bad as I thought it was when I left as ambassador and that was part of the challenge that I was looking forward to, it was even worse than I thought," he said.
Putin knows his adversaries well. He will "negotiate" with Ukraine, Western Europe, and the U.S., extract as many concessions as he can, and then agree to stop fighting until he's able to manufacture another "crisis" and start the war all over again, only this time after having gobbled up a considerable amount of territory in Eastern Ukraine.
What I often say to audiences when talking about the discussion in Congress on support for Ukraine and our attitude towards Russia and in general the situation today in the world with the unlimited friendship … between Russia and Beijing. We in the United States, we’re asleep. We’re asleep now. We’re asleep to the threat that Russia and that Russia, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang pose to not just the international system but to the United States in particular.
Sullivan tells those who oppose aid to Ukraine, "You’re focused on Ukraine, you need to be focused on Russia." Sullivan points out that a huge portion of America's nearly $850 billion defense budget is already committed to stopping Russia. Cutting the defense budget by $60 billion, the amount earmarked for Ukraine aid, wouldn't put much of a dent in defense spending.
Opposition on the right about whether to support Ukraine is based on the question of why support the corrupt government of Ukraine and it should not be in the U.S. interest to protect a European state when Western Europe is capable of doing the job without U.S. assistance. Better to use that money to guard the Southern border than give it to Ukrainian oligarchs.
Sullivan is aware of Donald Trump's position on Ukraine but thinks that many on the right misunderstand him.
[I]t would have been news to Putin and the Russian Federation that the United States government was soft on the Russian Federation, with all the sanctions we imposed, etcetera. But there was a line in the infamous debate between Trump and Biden last month where Trump is basically asked, ‘Do you want to see Putin win?’ and he says, ‘No, I don’t want to see Putin win.’ And I have heard him say to me personally as deputy secretary that he knows that Putin and the Russian Federation is an enemy of the United States, that they’re not our friends. Now, where people get, I think, misdirected is focused on spending money to support Ukraine when really what we’re doing is spending money to oppose Russia and defend ourselves and the West against Russia. That’s my message to Republicans.
That should be the bottom line. Does anyone with an awareness of world events really want Russia to win in Ukraine? I think not. It would be madness to encourage Vladimir Putin to try getting away with more aggression.
Let's recall that Putin is a full-blooded Russian revanchist who longs for the good old days of Communism and Russian dominance in Eastern Europe. To give this megalomaniac permission to invade other countries is madness and would surely lead to a war between the U.S. and Russia.
Ukraine can't win even with U.S. weapons. But it can continue to make the war so costly for Russia that Putin would consider negotiations. It's not the best outcome for the U.S., but it's better than sending U.S. troops to fight in Ukraine.
